[dropcap]A[/dropcap] very powerful narrative was pushed in this country and it was one of persecution. The narrative of persecution is not a new one; the only difference is now the narrative has gained traction among people who are far and away the least persecuted population in the country. For a fact, everyone has it hard from time to time but there are certain segments of our population that have not had to face the same systemic oppression as everyone else and as such are not affected by many kinds of hardships to such an extreme degree…but racist ass white people aren’t trying to hear that s***. Now since everyone loves and connects with the underdog narrative, even people with no lack of access to power (especially those people), those with nothing to fear from the world on a daily, nearly minute-to-minute basis, have elected the literal fall of Rome on their mad dash to chase the high that comes from witnessing the spectacle of struggle from the safety of their privilege.
That’s how we end up in 2018 where the perpetual underdog anti-fascist character of Captain America gets exalted as a sacred hero by the real world fascists that he’s spent over 50 years being depicted punching in the f****** face in every form of media. Bear in mind that the beginnings of this resurgence of fascist interest in Captain America was part of their backlash AGAINST Captain America being depicted as secretly having fascist allegiances. So now the white male fascists are protesting against a black male writer in fear of him further changing Captain America’s political agenda (which was never on their side) with the hopes that Marvel Comics will put a white male writer on the book, ignoring the fact that when his political agenda was changed TO BE ON THEIR SIDE (which again they did not like) it was done by a white man because apparently White Privilege is irony-proof.
I hope Marvel Comics can search down deep and finds the integrity to ignore these trolls so they continue on the path that they’ve always been on. They’ve definitely backpedaled and f***** up at times and yet they’ve been more openly vocal and thoughtfully on the side of people of color than their closest competitor for many many years. If you don’t believe me, go pick up a Captain America trade paperback and see for yourself.
Cameron Crump
Cameron@comicattack.net
People don’t want Ta-Nehisi Coates to write Cap. America because the values Cap’n represents are alien to him. Coates has clearly never read a Cap book or even seen any of the Captain America movies (he expressed surprise that the Captain often resists government orders if they’re antithetical to American values). It comes down to your thesis being utterly wrong from the start. Coates is a terrible comic book writer and his Black Panther runs being cancelled in short order is proof of that. To grant Coates the right to headline two more comics after flubbing two lay-ups is the reason for the resistance. Your three pages to make it seem like the resistance to Coates is do to some sort of racist agenda is so far off the mark that it screams of clickbait.
Seems like you didn’t really read the article 😉. I only say that because you don’t seem to make one cogent argument addressing any point I have made but that’s perfectly fine. Reading the article would have only spoiled the fact that I knew you weren’t going to anyway.
In any case sincerely thank you for your patronage. Be well my friend.
So the criteria for being allowed to write a character is that comics have to be read and all movies watched before they get the job? You do know that PLENTY of comic writers do this little thing called research on characters and I’m sure Marvel and Coates are prepping for this. I see Jim Zub and other white writers on twitter all the time talking about research on characters they weren’t too familiar with in order to be better prepared to write them and no one jumps down their neck about it. So that argument is invalid.
Also since my whiteness has allowed me to be privy to hearing a lot of crap there ARE people who don’t want Coates on Cap simply because he’s black. Claiming he’s racist and making up false equivalency seems to be the go to for thsee people. Can you actually PROVE the values Cap represents are alien to Coates? You can’t because you’d rather make an assumption about this guy to fit your narrative about him. Black Panther is also NOT CANCELLED BECAUSE OF COATES lol Marvel is doing a “fresh start” and several titles are getting renumbered/restarted once again and I’m more upset about that than Coates writing Cap.
And to call the article click bait because YOU didn’t read it is the weak argument of someone who is too lazy to forge an actual thoughtful debate.
While I’m indifferent to Coates being attached to Captain America, I fail to see where the previous commenters points about why people are opposed to it are valid based on the piece provided. To say that the values Cap represents are alien to him are pure conjecture. And while I don’t always agree with Mr. Crump’s Correct Opinion, even you would have to agree that with the current social climate and certain peoples proclivity to denounce or sabotage anything black (review bombing and false reports of white people being assaulted during Black Panther screenings as examples) are most certainly a reality.
Having read the Atlantic piece to which he spoke about his taking on the Captain America story it would seem that he has quite a good grasp who Cap is and the legacy to which he is entering. Whether Coates “flubbed two lay-ups” with Black Panther is subjective as with most art forms there will be people who love it and people who hate it. Clearly, if Marvel saw his runs on Black Panther as “flubs” they wouldn’t have granted him the support of some of their best.
Eric gets it.
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